Author: John

The Mountain
The Mountain

The longest and one of the most complex poems I have written is titled – The Mountain. The mountain is used to help describe my relationship to my self, the world and my superego (inner critic). The poem has three sections – The Day Face, The Night Face and The Crucible of the Heart. Each section has two parts. The first part describes my relationship to the mountain from a certain perspective and the second part describes a journey of revelation and growth that opens up the perspective.

The Mountain

always the mountain
soaring up from earth
stretching far beyond eagle’s reach
noble aristocrat, Olympian presence
empyrean sovereign bows to none
head high in tempest or tranquility
inspires, reassures
prodigious seduction from afar
and I
pretender to the throne
emulate such grandiosity
rock solid, I stand aloof
with pretentious dignity
one cool remove away
from the world and its ailment
man – humankind
me

Read the entire poem – The Mountain

Mountain Interests

Related Posts
Links of Interest

[ad#post468]
June 16
Geneen Roth Next to Laura Bush
Geneen Roth Winds Up Next to Former First Lady Laura Bush

I’m working my way through Women, Food & God by Geneen Roth. Geneen has written a best-seller in my opinion. Her knowledge, experience and wisdom of what drives us to eat is exceptional. Her insights and stories are humorous and challenging.

As I was walking thorough the Detroit airport the other day, I saw this book stand facing the concourse. I loved the fact that Geneen’s book is sitting right next to Laura Bush’s. Geneen deserves a best-seller, not only because what she has to offer is so valuable and needed by so many, but she is also on the rebound from being victimized by the Bernie Madoff scam.

A day after returning to California, I was in Borders Books in San Ramon and there, too, Women, Food, & God is sitting next to Laura Bush. I guess it may be part of the marketing plan. I notice that these two books are also at eye-level – giving them even greater exposure to passing eyes.

Being the number one recommend book in Oprah’s newsletter a couple of months ago, probably helped to propel Women, Food and God into the stratosphere as well.

I am on a wellness journey myself and have started a blog AgeLESSing – Anti-Aging to serve as my accountability partner. So far, I’m down 12 pounds and three belt notches. Instead of dieting, I am changing my lifestyle – focusing more on health & wellness.

Satisfy Your Hunger for Knowledge

Related Posts
Links of Interest

[ad#post468]
May 28
Integrity & Impeccability
Integrity & Impeccability –
Doing versus Being

I had a great conversation with my sister the other day around integrity. She has a couple of integrity issues and questions up with other people in her life. Integrity is important to her and she does not want someone’s lack of integrity to reflect on hers.

I had sent her one of my favorite books on integrity – Integrity by Dr. Henry Cloud – a couple of months ago. She is still working her way through it and I think this was also part of what prompted the conversation. Henry Cloud talks a lot about character when he talks about integrity. He defines character as: the ability to meet the demand of reality. It’s not the talk, it’s the walk. How you live reveals your integrity.

6 Aspects of Character
1. The ability to connect authentically (which leads to trust)
2. The ability to be oriented toward the truth which leads to finding and operating in reality)
3. The ability to work in a way that gets results and finishes well (which leads to reaching goals, profits, or the mission)
4. The ability to embrace, engage, and deal with the negative (which leads to ending problems, resolving them, or transforming them)
5. The ability to be oriented toward growth (which leads to increase)
6. The ability to be transcendent (which leads to enlargement of the bigger picture and oneself)
Last night, I was in a conversation with a good friend and the topics of integrity and impeccability also came up. One thing I realized is that most people associate integrity and impeccability with a self-image or an ego ideal – we have our ideas about how to live with integrity and impeccability and these ideas are related to how we see ourselves or how we wish to be seen by others.

Integrity comes from the Latin root integr which refers to “entire” or “whole.”

From the perspective of true nature or soul or wholeness, having integrity would mean being whole, not divided. Integrity would not involve trying to live up to a self-image, ego ideal or expectation. Integrity would be the natural expression of the “whole” person. integrity and impeccability would be natural expressions of “whole” person’s life – no doing needed. The walk and the talk would be integrated.

Integrity & Impeccability

Related Posts
Links of Interest

[ad#post468]
May 26
Cowboy Up to Yoga
Cowboy Up to Your Feminine Side

I used to work with a bunch of guys who were raised to believe that men were meant to be strong and unemotional – unless they were cussing and angry, which were acceptable expressions of male superiority. In fact, I was one of those guys. It’s hard not be with all of the conditioning thrown at us.

I guess growing up in the 50’s & 60’s we had two choices depending on our sex – macho or Barbie. I never met a guy in my youth that wanted to grow up and be Ken. The thing with conditioning is that we rarely question it in a deep way. The deeper the conditioning, the more it feels like an unquestionable part of us. It can be hard to imagine a life outside of our norms. In fact, a large part of our mental activity is always being spent in maintaining the status quo.

I started taking yoga classes this week as part of my new direction toward health & fitness. At 60, I decided I would commit myself to actualizing some goals I have been paying lip service to for too many years. One goal being more flexibility for this aging body.

Yoga is interesting. There’s a constant reminder from the instructor for strength and relaxation at the same time – yin & yang. Unlike my conditioning which mostly emphasized the yang and diminished the yin.

Of course, that created a lot of problems that are still being sorted out. As I watch young boys and girls interact, I see the conditioning is still as active as ever. I was observing some high school students interact the other day in a couple of different situations. The boys were being inconsiderate and callous towards the girls and the girls were all a giggle and accepting of it.

All human beings are born with a range of emotional ground that far exceeds where most of us find ourselves as adults. We move, emotionally, in a very constricted range of experience – like a 60-year old body that hasn’t been stretched regularly through the years.

Laying on the yoga mat and moving through the poses brings many opportunities to me:
- Working on increasing flexibility
- Developing focus and concentration
- Attending to the moment and letting the daily mind go
- Embodying strength and relaxation in the same moment
- Allowing the superego to take a 90-minute break
Men seem to be greatly outnumbered by women in yoga classes – which also seems to be the case in personal growth work. I think that says a lot about male conditioning.

Cowboy Up Your Curiosity

Related Posts
Links of Interest

[ad#post468]
May 19
Time-Blocking in Timelessness
Is Time-Blocking Recommended for Beings of Timelessness?

I woke up with the title of this post in my mind. I have no idea where it came from – perhaps timelessness. I recall it being in one of my dreams, but there it was in my mind as I re-entered my time-space consciousness. I let it roll around in my brain for a while to see what it would generate.

The first generation of thought was around a friend of mine, Janel, that teaches a course every now and then on “Essential Time Management.” The course is directed toward people on spiritual paths who incorporate a daily spiritual practice into their lives and are trying to integrate the affairs of this world into a life that is more oriented toward living in the NOW – Timelessness – than remaining stuck in the conditioning and confines of the space-time continuum.

These days if one is attempting to Be In the World, but Not of IT, essential time-blocking may support one’s effort in the direction of living in Presence, the NOW and Timelessness – a boundless dimension of experience that challenges the belief in oneself as a separate entity.

The next impression to arise in my mind was of people with beeping watches. You know the type – they have their watches set to beep on the hour or half hour to remind themselves of some goal – perhaps being mindful – who knows. I can’t swear to it, but it seems that the majority of them tune out the hourly beep after all – it fading into the background with all the other white noise of life.

But then that led to a thought of setting the beep to occur in ever smaller and smaller increments of time until one’s realm of experience was reduced to the NOW or Timelessness.

It was at this point that I rolled out of bed, went to meditate, then onto my morning stretches and finally into my day that was overloaded with projects and “to dos” – a list that never ends. Thus, in spite of my attempts to remain mindful and concentrate on the most important things needing attention – the day ended as countless others before it – in desperate need of a consciousness receptive to time-blocking in a universe only a stone’s throw from timelessness.

Curiosity for the Cat

Related Posts
Links of Interest

[ad#post468]
May 9
A Healthy Dose of Optimism
Optimism Greets My Day

I woke up today (Friday, April, 23, 2010) at 3:45am – not an unusual occurrence. I was feeling better, emotionally & physically, than I had in several weeks (long story). Sent my sister in Petoskey, MI a quick text and then off to my meditation chair to begin the day.

A great meditation was had by all – what’s that mean? Well, my body was more relaxed, my mind more settled and focused, my sense of me was more fluid and transparent, and reality seemed light & playful – if I may be so bold to say so 12 hours later.

Some quick work on the computer and then it was off to my Friday morning BNI (Business Networking International) meeting in Pleasanton, CA – where I do my best to get referrals for people that want to buy or sell homes in Danville, San Ramon or Pleasanton, California.

I’m about halfway to my BNI meeting, driving down I-680 from Danville to Pleasanton, when I realize – I’m feeling optimistic!

This kind of surprised me – to the point where I had to ask myself what is optimism? Here’s what the dictionary says:
op·ti·mism
–noun
1. a disposition or tendency to look on the more favorable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcome.
2. the belief that good ultimately predominates over evil in the world.
3. the belief that goodness pervades reality.
4. the doctrine that the existing world is the best of all possible worlds.
Well, I didn’t have my dictionary handy, only my experience that my mind was associating the word optimism with. So, I checked in with my experience to see what was happening that felt like optimism. Two things dominated my experience: 1) a sense of openness and 2) a perception of the good everywhere.

It seemed impossible to look anywhere and not feel optimistic. And you know what? Twelve hours later, optimism is everywhere. I’m running off to the gym feeling very optimistic – about nothing in particular, but everything in general!

Related Posts
- Extropy
- You are brilliant, and the earth is hiring
Links of Interest

[ad#post468]
April 23